New Little King's Story Heads to Japan in March

If you enjoyed Little King's Story on the Wii as much as I did, the news of a re-imagined Vita title hitting Japanese stores March 29 should qualify as encouraging.

New Little King's Story features a re-imagined art style (anime), with King Corobo still at the helm, albeit in a parallel universe from the first game.

At his disposal will be a bevy of new Vita-based touch controls, which could make for a more streamlined experience than the Wii's pointer-based mechanic. It seems you can tap the screen to engage your units and draw a circle to identify a group. The rear touchpad is used for status info–a character’s hit points, their job strengths / weaknesses, etc.

In my playthrough of the original, I ran into some pathfinding issues when my army grew large and unwieldy. Hopefully the Vita version addresses those issues and makes other improvements on the game's solid simulation foundation.

Konami, which is funding the game but not developing it, has said they'll also be sending the game to Europe (no date available). Word of a North American's version has yet to surface.